Chapter 749: The Ring at Midnight
“How are things going with that neighbor of yours?”
“I went to her place yesterday, ended up sweating buckets. My back still hurts…”
“Wow, congratulations!”
“Moving a chest of drawers is such a chore!”
After dinner, Chen Shi and Xin Bai walked together chatting. Not far away, Gu You and Lin Dongxue were engaged in a lively conversation about women.
“I’m quite interested in lucid dreaming. I want to give it a try,” Xin Bai said.
“Don’t mess around. The two people we know who tried it, one ended up a criminal on death row, and the other turned out like this. Isn’t that cautionary enough? Just focus on writing your crappy book!”
“Don’t you find it intriguing? Living another life in dreams. I’ve been wanting to experience an alternate reality for a while now. I’m heading to Xinhua Bookstore this afternoon to look for related books.”
“You’re quite the character…” Chen Shi thought to himself. The allure of lucid dreaming probably lies in its risks—when dreams are too beautiful, people tend to neglect reality or mistake the mundane for dreams.
A documentary about the future describes a scenario where, with the advancement of brainwave decoding technology, the impoverished immerse themselves in virtual worlds. They spend only eight hours awake each day to work, earning meager wages to sustain their physical bodies and pay for electricity, allowing them to continue numbing themselves in the virtual world.
Scientists say the future of humanity might not be distant stars but virtual reality.
He suddenly understood the pain conveyed by Liu Tao’s words, “I can’t dream anymore.” What he lost must have been incredibly significant to him.
As they walked to the parking lot, the four temporarily separated individuals reunited. Lin Dongxue said, “Since we can’t go to the prison today, I have no reason to linger outside. I have to go back and check on the case.”
“What case?” Chen Shi asked.
“A man was stabbed to death in the gym showers…”
Before she could finish, Xin Bai interjected, “Someone must have been jealous of his muscles.”
“If you don’t have anything useful to say, just keep quiet!”
“I’m not going then!” Chen Shi declared.
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want to!”
Gu You chuckled, “Mr. Chen, refusing a girlfriend like that could easily lead to arguments. It’s better to give a reason.”
“Who teaches you these things face-to-face?” Lin Dongxue mocked.
Chen Shi actually thought for a moment before saying, “I promised to go buy listening comprehension materials with Yuyue after school.”
“Is that true?”
“Absolutely, she’s about to take the entrance exam.”
Lin Dongxue rolled her eyes. “Take me back to the station!”
After getting in the car, Xin Bai asked, “Are you guys going to the prison? Take me with you! I’ve never had a chance to visit a prison and broaden my horizons. This opportunity can’t be missed!”
“Huh!?” Lin Dongxue looked unwilling.
“For the sake of his protagonist living three more years, you should agree,” Xin Bai urged.
“To let that damned protagonist live longer, fine, but I don’t like it,” Lin Dongxue sighed.
Gu You got off halfway to return to his consulting room, Lin Dongxue returned to work at the station, leaving Chen Shi and Xin Bai, the two idle fellows. Xin Bai smirked, “Wanna go get a massage?”
“Get lost! I’ll drive you home, but remember to pay for gas.”
In the afternoon, Chen Shi casually picked up Yuyue, then they strolled through Xinhua Bookstore. Chen Shi asked her, “What kind of dreams have you been having lately?”
“Nothing special, just typical teenage girl dreams.”
“Why are you so frank?”
“Because Uncle Chen, I can say anything in front of you.” Yuyue made a cute expression.
“You haven’t found a boyfriend at school, have you?”
“We only have junior high in our school. Even if I wanted to, there are only immature boys in ninth grade. I’m not interested at all…” Yuyue made a disdainful expression. “Adults always try to get closer to kids by talking about this stuff, it’s so deliberate!”
“Because adults are gossipers!” Chen Shi laughed.
He suddenly noticed that Yuyue had indeed grown up. With the weather warming up, she wore a cool little skirt that made her legs look long and slim.
Over a year ago, she seemed much smaller when he held her in his arms.
Unconsciously, Yuyue was already in her teens, and there were some things about girls that he shouldn’t ask. All he could do was…
“I’ll give you some extra pocket money,” Chen Shi suggested.
“You’ve been busy lately and don’t want to spend time with me?” Yuyue pouted.
“Just guessing!”
After dinner, Yuyue lay in her bedroom, laughing and chatting with her classmates on her phone. Seeing her not studying, Chen Shi felt relieved, quietly put down a plate of apples as a cover, and quietly slipped out of the room.
On this rare quiet night, Chen Shi sat in front of the computer in the living room, logged into his Zhihu account, and searched for souls in need of help.
At that moment, Xin Bai messaged him on QQ, the excitement palpable through the screen. “Hey, hey, I found a paper on Dream Control on CNKI! Want to take a look?”
“Not interested, go write your crappy draft.”
“Take a look, it’s explained in a very straightforward manner.”
Xin Bai sent over a file. Chen Shi’s cheek twitched. He absentmindedly accepted it and glanced at it, discovering the paper was authored by Chen Fengde!
He patiently read through it, but unfortunately, the paper only provided detailed methods without any valuable clues… It was published three years before Chen Fengde committed the crime, indicating his long immersion in this field.
Chen Shi pondered. Dream symbols? It seemed whenever he was in a dream, he was always Song Lang. Just discovering he was Song Lang meant he was dreaming?
No, no, no, he wasn’t going to try that weird stuff!
Yuyue came out and said, “Uncle Chen, want to watch a movie with me?”
“What do you want to watch?”
“The Ring.”
“You want to watch such an old movie? It’s really scary.”
“I’ve heard people talk about it often, but I’ve never seen it. I know it’s really scary, so will you watch it with me? If not, forget it. I’ll watch it by myself next time.”
A rare parent-child activity Chen Shi wouldn’t refuse. “Okay.”
Chen Shi opened a video streaming site and watched with her. At first, Yuyue was casually eating chips, seeming indifferent. As the movie progressed, the atmosphere grew increasingly gloomy and eerie, causing her to shrink into Chen Shi’s arms.
“Horror movies are fake. Just think about the directors and cameramen behind these actors, and you won’t be scared. Look, I’m not scared at all…” Just then, the phone rang, startling Chen Shi.
Trembling, he answered the phone with shaky hands, only to find out it was a wrong number. Yuyue covered her mouth and giggled, “Still not scared?”
“Want to watch something else? You can probably guess the rest of the plot.”
“No, I want to finish it. Don’t you think Sadako is very pitiful?”
“Indeed, being born different, human nature is to reject outsiders.”
After finishing the movie, they each returned to their rooms to sleep. In his dream, Chen Shi once again became Song Lang. He suddenly realized this fact, and in that moment of realization, the black and white dream instantly turned colorful—an automatic repair by his subconscious.
He stood in a small room, empty and desolate, walls covered in moss, cracks filled with gray s. In the center of the room stood an old-fashioned TV, and with a crackle, a picture appeared—a well.
“Oh my God!” Chen Shi exclaimed in shock. “Not The Ring! Not The Ring!”
He turned and ran…